Disaster Resilient-Future Ready Communities-a framework (Practitioners' Perspective)

Описание: Paper presentation at South Africa on 14. Sept 2023. It is prerecorded to avoid any problem of no Electricity or Wi-Fi at South Africa Disaster Resilient-Future Ready Communities-a framework
(Practitioners' Perspective)
Dr Yash Chawla, Prof N Vinod Chandra Menon
[email protected]; [email protected]
Abstract:
The transition process from Disaster Mitigation (pre-disaster) of minimising disaster losses to building a resilience capacity (beforehand) and initiating actions post-disaster to bounce back is to beat Disaster (un) preparedness for the Community. The process involves getting ready with the inventories, emergency drills, and backup/ safe location identification, partly implemented post-disaster. The resilience process has been dominantly technology-centric and focused on infrastructure. The resilience process has gained importance in the human-centric domain, covering the Community Resilience (CR) model, taking care of economic, social, educational, and criminal justice policies and practices that influence community characteristics and individual outcomes as mutually interactive. Emily Hoyle from The Connecticut Women's Consortium, in her blog, talks of the Community Resilient Model, quoting, "Trauma-informed[care] says, 'people are suffering'[and asks]'What happened to you?'" In contrast, the resiliency-based response says, "People are resilient.. any person can learn self-regulation skills based on science and biology,[and asks] 'What are your strengths?'" Unquote.
Thus, there is a need for Investments in Community Resilience preparedness. In today's definition, the Community has become "Intergenerational", with Youth and Women Cohorts coming on board and formally integrating into Climate change-related deliberations about environmental and societal disaster risk reduction and ecocide happening in the Russia-Ukraine War. In addition, this definition of Community expands to cover professional communities.
The Community Resilience Framework provides a healthy environment coming back to economic status and quality of life similar to before the Disaster through responsible Governance helped by the Community and through prepared systems with community members and recognised organisations educated on preparedness and ready with community resilience initiatives and making the Community socially cohesive and connected. The resilient Community is required to function and sustain critical systems, even under stress during disasters; adapt to physical, social or economic changes; and be self-reliant if external resources are limited or cut off. At the same time, learning from experience to improve over time is based on the vulnerability of each diversified community cohort with an inclusive approach including the physically challenged ( preparing for vulnerable people) and leaving no one behind, thus an all-inclusive Person Centred emergency preparedness (P-CEP) in Community Development.
An appropriate framework for assessing and developing Community Resilience enabling them to bounce back after withstanding any impacts on their physical and mental health, economic, social, and educational after mega-disasters and provides a roadmap for improving preparedness, risk reduction, emergency response and recovery, building on the excellent practice experiences and considering lessons learnt from the most devastating disasters in the 21st Century.
Community resilience depends on Early Warning for Early Action for all (EW4EA4A) to reduce the risk, which in simplistic terms comes from risks hazards x Exposure to hazards x Vulnerability.
With improving ageing and longevity and slowly disappearing gender bias, changing youth perspectives and better education on disasters, community resilience needs updating dynamically.
Key Words: Community Resilience, Early Warning, for Early Action, for all, Person Centred emergency preparedness.